MUSEUM MAY OFFER FREE DAY, KEEP TERRACE SHUT

The doors to the Museum of Art's outdoor terrace may be permanently locked in exchange for giving the public free admission to the museum one day each week.

The tentative agreement was reached Thursday between museum officials and the Downtown Development Authority.

Elliott Barnett, president of the museum's board of directors, said he had been planning the free offer anyway.

Admission to the museum, which opened Jan. 18, is $3 for adults, $2.50 for persons 65 years of age and older and $1 for students.

DDA member Jack Moss said he believes the deal was reached because museum officials "want to keep the museum as private as they can."

He said it is his understanding that those officials want to open a private restaurant on the sculpture terrace.

Mary Hardy, the museum's director of development, said there are plans for a cafe on the terrace, but she had no details on when it would open and who would operate it.

DDA officials sold the land, at Las Olas Boulevard between Andrews Avenue and Southeast First Avenue, to the museum five years ago on the condition that there would be free access to a portion of the museum.

The second-floor terrace was designed to be the accessible portion, but fear that the sculptures would be vandalized forced museum officials to lock the doors, Barnett has said.

According to the contract between the DDA and museum officials, $55,000 was taken off the $470,000 selling price of the land because the museum designated the sculpture deck as open land.

The contract states that DDA land was sold to the museum for two prices: $12.75 a square foot for property that would be enclosed and $5 a square foot for open land.

Ed Benton, the DDA chairman, said although open space was designated in the contract, "I think the truth of the matter is had everybody known everything they know today, it would have been done differently," referring to the threat of vandalism and the liability stemming from it.

Hardy said nine sculptures are now displayed on the terrace. She said she did not know the total value of the pieces, but said one of the sculptures is worth about $300,000.

Moss said the threat of vandalism is no more "valid than posting a guard 24 hours a day at the front of the museum" to protect the art objects on display there.

Hardy said those pieces are protected 24 hours a day by security guards or television monitors.

DDA member Charles Palmer said the location of the stairway on Andrews Avenue leading to the terrace was dangerous because it provided an easy place for muggers to hide and for people to enter and deface the art objects.

Palmer said the stairwell would still be used "for access to bring art objects upstairs, special parties, etc."